I like your tights...I know that...they're cute...

We had a BUSY week here in Passaic. Wow, we taught and taught then taught some more. It was so great. We are just teaching anybody that we can find. I mean, we don't count them as investigators if they aren't going to progress, but we have really been working on teaching when we contact someone rather than just giving them a card or something like that. It's much more effective. People are so cool! They love telling us about their lives and they really appreciate the message that we share, whether they want to know more or not. It is super cool how God just puts us where we need to be. Being a missionary and experiencing that has proven to me that he is in every detail of our lives and that he always answers our prayers. Every contact that we seem to have some sort of spiritual connection with has usually had some sort of spiritual experience lately or has been going through a hard time or just needed something. They express that to us also. Before my mission I always thought of missionaries as receiving a lot of rejection from people on the streets and things like that, which I'm not going to lie, that happens a lot, but really, there are a lot of people who don't exactly want to learn more about the church, but that are sincerely grateful for what we do. That is something really cool to see. Some people understand the sacrifice that we make, even if they don't understand the message that we teach. That is something that has really stuck out to me this week.

The Lazaro family fed us chicken legs and rice and potatoes this week. Just like every week, it was incredible! They're from Mexico, so their food is always spicy. They always ask us if we want salsa, so we ask them if it's hot. they always say "mmm, not really," so we try some and we end up dying every time. If a Mexican offers you salsa and tells you that it won't be hot, don't give into that lie. It's always hot :)

Sister Lazaro told us that she had "pocos alimentos" (a little food or snack.). We cracked up when she brought our plates out. This is what she refers to as "pocos alimentos."

 We had two really great lessons with Marcial this week. We finished teaching him the plan of salvation and we taught the whole gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't know how many times I can say this, but he is seriously the best! On Friday when we taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ, we had him over at a members house. That made all the difference for that lesson. It was really funny how it worked out actually. We asked Sister Caldaron last Sunday if she would come teach Marcial with us on Friday. She said that she would be happy to. Then when we called her on Friday night to tell her we were on our way to pick her up, she told us that she had prepared food and she was ready for us to bring him to her house.... we were so confused. I guess she thought we asked if we could bring Marcial over... so we hurried and called Marcial and asked if we could change the plans a little bit and if he would follow us out to the Calderon's family... it took a little bit longer than we had planned, because we had to drive clear out to Moonachie to pick up Marcial, then have him follow us to Lodi where the Calderon's live. But it was so perfect! He had a great time and he was comfortable in their home. They friendshiped him and shared their testimonies and their snacks with us. Then on Sunday they came in to church and without hesitation sat right next to him and brother Calderon sat by him in priesthood and they were talking the whole time and brother Calderon was explaining different things with him and shared his testimony with him. It was so awesome! Members are sososososososososo important! Marcial was glowing! This week he told us that he has been thinking a lot about when he wants to get baptized and everything and he decided that he doesn't want to wait for his girlfriend to get here because he just isn't sure when that is going to happen and he wants to get baptized before Sister Haycock leaves because it he wants her to be here. He is SOOOOO READY! ahhh. He is almost done with the Book of Mormon second time around! It is so funny. He practically has it memorized. He remembers all  of the stories, so whenever we share a scripture with him, he just goes "ohhh is this the part when...." then he explains the whole story before we read the scripture. hahahah oh he is great.

We have a couple of really cool newer investigators. I can't remember if I have written about them yet or not.. Anyways, their names are Tania and Wellington. I don't even know how to describe them. They seem to be some of those rare super prepared people. They have had a lot of different experiences in other religions and they know the doctrine in the bible really well and are very willing to experiment with what we invite them to do. They listen very intently and they understand the principles we teach very clearly. It has been really neat to teach them. Tania loves testimonies. I shared my testimony with her and an experience I had about how I knew theBook of Mormon was true and she just listened so intently the whole time. Then when I was done, she asked my companion to share her testimony of how she knew it was true. It was really cool and the spirit was there and we could tell that they recognized it. We are excited to go back and teach them again tonight. We have taught them a few times now and they said they are willing to start coming to church soon to see if they like it. 

On Thursday we usually go see the same people for our walking day. We started with a less active named Hna Echiveria and she always gives us a ton of food. She had her granddaughter and all of her great grandchildren over at her house with her that day. Her grandchildren are so stinkin' cute. She had 3 granddaughters and they literally had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. Sister Haycock and I had so much fun playing with them and teaching them. We each had one sharing a chair with us while we ate playing with our pass along cards and our pamphlets and just being so cute. It reminded me of my cute nieces and nephews and how much I just looooove talking to kids because they are so innocent and honest. It was so fun. Then later that night we went to visit one of my favorite families, the Lopez family. Before we got to their house we contacted a really cool guy on the  street. His name was Michael. He was one of those really really intelligent people. He was super cool and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he was really interested to read it because he knew a lot of church history because he studied religion. He said, "wow I have always wondered about this book because I have studied Mormon history, but now I actually own one, that is cool, thank you sisters." Anyways. It was a cool contact. Then we went to see the Lopez family. Ok, funny story, before we went to go see them, we were planning to go get ice cream but we contacted Michael so we didn't have time.... We were super super bummed about it. Within 10 minutes of our appointment with the Lopez, Abby, the 13 year old, went into the kitchen and came out with two big ice cream cones for us. Sis Haycock and I just looked at each other and cracked up and we told them the whole story about how we wanted ice cream so bad. I guess that the conclusion to this story is that GOD LOVES US! haha. He cares even about the little things... Like wanting ice cream :) Only if you put him first though.... like contacting someone instead of buying ice cream. 

Oh yeah! I can't forget to tell you about the Valencias! Oh man, we had a good time visiting them this week. The Valencias are the Peruvians that are like 100 years old and kinda crazy. Remember them? Well, we had an appointment set with them for Friday at 3. Hno Valencia NEVER forgets about appointments with us. He just loves us so much that crazy old man... anyways. SO we get there and he forgot for the first time ever. So they had two nurses over there to help them out and he was just laying in this chair and his wife was taking a nap. But he sits up and he was so happy to see us he pointed his hands up to the sky and said "oh dios me envio dos angeles!" (God sent me two angels!). hahahaha. We asked him if it would be better if we came at a different time but he said that he wanted us to stay right where we were. So we were talking to him and his two nurses were just kind of sitting in the back ground having their own conversation. We shared a short message with him and ended with a prayer, then it was time for one of his nurses to leave. She went over to his chair and told him goodbye, then on her way out she asked him if there was anything she could do for him, then this special conversation happened:

He replied "next time you come over here listen to these two angels sitting on my couch." 

And she laughed and said, "oh you know I go to my own church." 

Then he sits up ready to pick a fight with her he stuck his finger out and said "but you are not baptized!" 

Nurse: "I was baptized." 

Hno Valencia: "by who?"

Nurse: "by a man, just like you were."

Hno Valencia: "El fue on Hombre mundano y pecaminoso" ( no he that man was worldly and a sinner!"

Then the nurse rolled her eyes and shut the door. Ahahahahahahahahah I wanted to laugh so bad. Man if he could walk, I would love to contact with him and watch him call people to repentance like that. It was so hilarious. Then he said to us "well, I tried." Then we were standing up to leave and he said to us "stop, don't move" then he hobbled over to open his cupboard. When he opened it our mouths dropped because it was full of Peruvian candy and soda and cookies... It looked so delicious. We were getting excited. Then he reaches to the back and starts rummaging around. We were anticipating getting some delicious Peruvian cookies. Our mouths were watering. Then he pulls out two cans of tuna. I wish I had a picture of our faces. I wanted to just bust out laughing right there. We said thank you, grabbed the tuna and hustled out the door because we were trying not to laugh at how lame our lives are. hahaha. It was so disappointing, but oh so funny. We have the worst luck. 

Saturday was such an interesting day. We went back to the service house that we were working on last week. We were there from 9-2 scrubbing rust off of these two shelves. There were 6 of  us working on these two shelves and we were scrubbing them for a good 4 hours and they still had rust on them. It was so crazy. Kind of annoying. They were so disgusting. I wish I had pictures of them. It was fun though. It was nice to just work and talk with other missionaries without a thousand other things to worry about. I got to know the 2 new missionaries in our zone pretty well. They were helping us out. The new sister is so cute. Her name is Sister Ivie and she is being trained in Patterson by Sister Monson. It is cute to see her and remember when I was that young in the mission. She was like a lost puppy. I hope I was able to help her in some way. She had tons of questions about the mission and everything. The first few weeks you really have no idea what is going on, you kind of just follow your trainer around. It made me feel so old though because all of the missionaries that Sister Monson and I were talking about have already died. And because we were teaching her about transfer gossip and so we named off the Spanish sisters that are older than me and there are hardly any.... That was a really gross realization. Ah ew. The weirdness is too much. 

The rest of the day was just so funny. There was so many random things that happened. We got home from service at 3:30 and we had an appointment at 4, so we did some super fast showering. It was really impressive actually, then headed to this appointment. It was a hand off of an English investigator that we found to the English sisters in our area. So we were there with Sisters Webb and Greenall, the Patterson English sisters. The guy juked us so we kind of lingered and talked to them for a minute. We were just really intrigued and didn't want to leave that street because there was a movie being filmed in the house across the street and we were watching them do all of that. They were doing some scene over and over again. We were kind of trying to get in the back ground of the scene and show some Book of Mormon pride. hahaha. We finally decided that we were being unproductive just sitting around watching them film this movie so we left and walked around Lodi a little bit to try and visit some less active members that lived in that area. We were contacting some people as we were walking. On our way back to the car, we saw this lady with some patterned tights, a bun and headphones. Oh we hate it when people walk around with head phones because it is hard to talk to them, and this lady had this attitude about her so sister haycock was just like "challenge expected" so she walked up to this lady and was like "hey I really like your tights" and the lady just put her hand up and walked passed us. Sister Haycock is persistent though with our district goal to bear testimony in EVERY contact, so determined to get her testimony in there she looked at me panicked and said, "and I know that..... They are really cute!" This all happened within like a 5 second time period. It was just way too funny. I started laughing right there on the spot. We had to stop walking and just laugh and laugh and laugh for a second. Not quite the testimony that I think our district leader was talking about, but an A for effort Sister Haycock. So now whenever we need a laugh one of us will just look at the other and say "Hey I like your tights... I know that...... They're cute." 

After that we had the giggles all day and funny things just kept happening. We went to go visit this less active named Lilian. We absolutely adore her. She is so cute. But we were talking to her about the Book of Mormon and Sister Haycock was something out to her when all of a sudden the footrest on the seat she was sitting in just sprung up and caught us all by surprise. It was so funny. We laughed and laughed. Then Lilian left the room randomly and came out with brand new shoes for both of us. And they are super cute and comfortable too! God just loves us so much! We are getting points for trying, even though we feel like we are just failing so bad with all of our awkwardness.

The Albarracin family made us spaghetti verde. SO yummy. 

They're from Peru, so of course their food is good :)

 

Those are basically all of the highlights for this week. It was great. We didn't get to go see Sister Haycock's family though, because her cousin was out of town. They just got home though, so we have an appointment with them for this Thursday, so that should be fun. Then we are going to Ellis Island on Friday which should be fun, too! It is going to be a great week!

I love you and miss you all! Remember to choose the right!

-Sister Clark

P.S. Shout out to all of my dead companions, if you are reading this, (which I know you probably are because you are all stalkers), you should love me and send me letters or emails because I miss yous and I want to hear all about your buried relationships! love yous! <3